Bill Lawrence Q filter

[Dodger]

Ok this is my final question regarding bill lawrence pickups then im taking the plunge. What exactly does this Q filter do? The website says it changes the impendance of the the pickups and a review on harmony central says that can get acoustic like sounds out of his electric with this installed but how exactly does it change ur sound and how many possibilities are there with this device? Thanks in advance.

[porterburst]

http://guitarsbyfender.yuku.com/topic/2992
Basic tone Q info.

http://guitarsbyfender.yuku.com/topic/3000
Tuning it with caps and resistors .

[Natman]

Well I had some in 2 different guitars and they do work but they didn't impress me. Kind of like how a Varitone is not very popular, these would have caught on if they were really all that. The best way to think of it is they make the pickup sound weaker. As if you removed windings. This is true, but there is no guarantee that the pickups you use will sound good that way. To me, they did not make the guitar sound like an acoustic, sorry. That's just false. Maybe a crappy electro-acoustic I suppose (I really hate piezo pickups). Essentially think of getting a vintagey output out of a hot pickup. But your pickup needs to be hot to begin with for that to work. I had a SSS with a 280N, 200M and 298B. The bridge pickup benefitted from the q-filter, the rest: nothing. Or almost nothing, it was pretty useless. The other axe I had it on used Mighty Mite MotherBuckers which are supposed to be very high output. The change with q-filters just thinned out the sound, which was ok, but not life-changing. Then again those pickusp are not that great anyway so YMMV.

Now there ARE other ways to use the Q-filter as an eq shift. If you wire it the right way it wacts alot like a varitone. I have not tried it, but the q-filter is just an inductor and there's only so much you can do. It's kind of cheesy sounding if you ask me. I have had a varitone with a variable inductor which means you select the frequency to be affected using the rotary switch (it's only different caps) then you dial in how much cut you want with a pot that has the inductor wired to it. It does what it's supposed ot do but you lose output and alot of the sounds are nasally. You could experiment until the shift is what you want ot hear but unless you add the rotary switch with multiple capacitors, you only get ONE frequency to play with. The idea is very good but in practice, it's not that great.

[uOpt]

The Q filter combined with the schematics from the sheet that Bill gives you with it form a LCR (or CLR) network. Effectively that removes impedance from the circuit, it takes away one but not all of your pickup winding's effect of having many winds. Or in other words: it takes one aspect of you coils' wind back to what it would be with less winds, but not other aspects. Adding winds adds resistance and impedance, removing some impedance without removing resistance cchanges the character of the pickup.

In effect, a pot with the Q filter acts like a Tone control but instead of just making the sound darker it makes the sound "sweeter". It is very hard to describe. It's mellowing out without changing the EQ. Turning it all the way down you end up with a metallic nothing.

The best example of LCR networks in use are Ritchie Blackmore's recordings from 1975 or so on. He uses what his old roadie describes (and sells) as "MCT" . Richtie at least at some time only had it on the neck pickup. If you listen to some late (e.g. 1995) Blackmore hard rock you can easily hear it. Remember he's using vintage style Strat pickups, but his sound is very round and full and "sweet", at least some of the time. This is one reason why.

Some people also posted soundclips of their Strats with the MCT in action.

I found LCR networks to be must more useful with vintage style Fender pickups that with naturally full sounding pickups. The best use is to redesignate an existing pot so that you have a normal tone pot (use a 1 Mohm pot to get it out of the picture at "10") and a LCRed tone pot.